Chris Faraone and Mike Crawford discussed police accountability, corruption, and larger issues surrounding the Karen Read case
YouTube and podcast host Mike Crawford is currently known by millions of people who are following the Karen Read case for his reporting and work on that front.
But his increasingly popular show, The Young Jurks, started years before that scandal unfolded, as did my team’s reporting collaborations with him.
About a decade ago, I started editing his coverage of the prohibitionist politics leading up to—and then immediately following—cannabis legalization in Mass. Back then, he wrote under the moniker Mike Cann, and his “The Tokin’ Truth” was one of the first columns that BINJ produced and distributed. It was also one of the leading sources of critical cannabis information at the time for everyone from lawmakers to partakers.
Over the past year, Mike has gained a significant new audience via his tireless coverage of the Karen Read trial. His interviews with everyone from journalists to analysts, lawyers, and concerned citizens typically stretch on for hours, getting to the nitty gritty that is typically lost in the media sauce.
Since a lot of work we do at BINJ is relevant to issues central to the Read case—from reporting on the Massachusetts State Police and municipal forces to Fourth Amendment journalism—it was great to connect with his audience. Specifically, we discussed the new BINJ collaboration with the Chicago-based Invisible Institute—Half The Story: Massachusetts passed historic police certification reform. But even with the POST Commission, the public can’t see which cops have been part of the “officer shuffle.”
If any of these topics are of interest to you, then I think you will enjoy our deep dive.
